Chapter 350: 350. Need to See What This Team Is Capable Of Before Going into Danger

What followed was the kind of combat that happened when one side had prepared for resistance and the other side had not prepared to be efficient about it.

Rex used both Elemental Magic Creation and Elemental Mastery at the same time, which was the combination he had been looking for since the Underlayer session. The Mastery provided him with access to all known elements at their maximum output, while the Creation let him make frequencies that didn’t have an absorption profile yet.

’There it is... That’s the gap I’ve been looking for.’

He sent a standard firework to the group’s left flank, where their defenses took it in. While they were processing that, he followed with a compound element from the Creation that ran a gravitational-adjacent frequency at the fire’s wake.

’You can’t catalogue what you’ve never seen before... And you’ve never seen this.’

The absorption system couldn’t handle two different frequency profiles at the same time, which indicates a significant limitation in its design that could lead to operational failures in critical situations.

’One processor... Two inputs... That isn’t a defense...’

’That’s a design flaw...’

The compound element made it through.

"The left flank is open," Rex said, not loud, just enough for the people close enough to act on it.

Iris got out of the carriage just as Rex’s compound working was on its way, and she moved with the same speed he had seen her move with since the first time he saw her. She was like an assassin who used combat as a precision tool rather than a force tool.

"Left side, four of them," she said, already reading the field before her feet had fully settled. "Two are covering, and two are committing!"

In the time it took Rex to figure out where the next group was, she killed two of the flanking figures with the blade work that assassin-types learned when their skills had been running long enough to sync up with the body’s timing.

’She is truly a skilled assassin, and if I lower my guard while fighting her, it will create a problem for me.’

"Two down on the left," she said, already moving to the next position.

She stepped over one of the bodies without looking at it. "The other two are pulling back!"

"Don’t let them reach the treeline."

Elizabeth came out of the first carriage with her grimoire open, which made her look like a mage who had a library in the field instead of a catalog. She ran two different workings at the same time from different pages.

One was to put out the fire in the middle of the road, and the other was to shape the wind so that the fire went out along the edges of the road, where it made a psychological barrier instead of a physical one. Rex had never seen anyone do this cleanly before.

She used a magical book to perform spells. That’s weird, and it can be her biggest weakness if that book is her source of magic.’

"Push them toward the tree line," Elizabeth called. "Don’t let them regroup in the road."

"Already on it," Iris said, without looking back.

Rex looked at the dual working and put it away.

Talyra came out behind Iris and had her bow in her hands before her feet hit the road. The archery that followed was as quick as someone who had been in the field enough times that the transition from carriage to active engagement was a single continuous motion.

STAB!

"Right cluster, three left," she said, pulling another arrow without looking at her quiver.

"Yeah, I see them clear," Apollo said from ahead.

The other members of the bandit group were reacting as large groups typically do when they realized that the group they had stopped was far more skilled than they had initially believed.

Rex let them make it. The ones who had not engaged retreated into the tree cover with the speed of people who had made a decision and were executing it, and the ones who had engaged were no longer in a position to make choices.

Rex went back to the carriage.

Talyra was already back inside, and Aisella was doing the field triage check she did after every engagement. This was a fifteen-second check of everyone in the immediate group.

"Everyone’s clean," Aisella said. "No injuries."

Nerith had come to the door of the carriage but hadn’t come out. She was looking at the road like someone who had been watching something happen and was trying to figure out what it meant.

’What’s wrong with her now...?’ Rex climbed up onto the running board and looked at her. "What happened, Nerith?"

She said, "The compound element." She paused. "The one you sent to the left flank..."

"The pattern of absorption on the trailing frequency."

"I see..." Rex said, "So you read and notice it, huh?"

"Well... I tried." She looked him in the eye. "I couldn’t put the trailing frequency into a category."

"It doesn’t fit into any of the botanical or elemental taxonomies."

"Not at all," Rex said. "It’s original."

Nerith was shocked hearing that. "W-What...? You made that...?"

"Yep," Rex said. "And it’s not easy because of the process."

She looked at him for a moment. The tips of her hair went from green to amber and back to green, just like they did when she was thinking about something that needed a more in-depth analysis.

"We’re still moving," Rex said as he stepped inside. "Come inside now."

The carriage started up again. The road went on to the east.

...

When Apollo’s voice came through the speaking tube from the first carriage, the light in the afternoon looked like it did when the sun wasn’t directly above and the shadows had moved. The land east of Aethelgard had shifted from the transition zone to the far outer reaches.

"Three big monsters on the right side of the road, and it looks like they aren’t going anywhere."

Rex looked out the front window.

"How big are they?" Alexander’s voice came through.

"Four meters at the shoulder," Apollo said. "Maybe more, and it looks like to me that... they’re just standing there...?"

"Stop the carriages now," Elizabeth said through the tube. "Everyone out."

Rex left first to check it closely.

The three creatures were on a raised piece of ground about forty meters to the right, which made them tall enough for their scale to be seen from the road without effort.

They weren’t the kind of wolf-constructs from the morning. They had a different shape, with heavier shoulders and the kind of stillness that came from not knowing whether the carriages were a threat or an opportunity.

"Rockhide bears," Iris said, coming to stand beside Rex. "They’re territorial, not aggressive."

"If we move quietly, they might let us pass."

"They’re between us and the road’s eastern bend," Alexander said, scanning the terrain.

"Not exactly," Rex said, looking at the angle. "They’re forty meters off the road."

"We’d pass well clear of them.

"Still, we need to be careful," Iris said, her eyes narrowing as she looked at the bears. "We could accidentally prove them with one wrong move."

"Rockhides don’t see distance the way we do," Iris said. "The carriages might register as threats regardless of how far we are." 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Elizabeth closed her grimoire and assessed the group with the look she used when she had already reached a conclusion and was waiting for everyone else to catch up. "We’re not taking chances this close to the canyon approach."

"We deal with them here."

Rex looked at Apollo. "Your move, my friend."

"I’m going to write this one down just to give some to you."

"Alright." Apollo nodded.

Apollo looked at the creatures that were roughly four meters at the shoulder, which placed them in the category of things that required coordinated engagement rather than individual response.

Their hides had the dark-brown quality of animals that had evolved in rocky terrain, thick enough to require working through rather than around.

Apollo was already in the center-forward position he used for coordinated engagements.

Rex stood on the right side of the group and watched.

There was no plan for this involvement. He chanced to hook up.

It was important for the canyon that he watched. The team needed to be tested against a real threat to get a true picture of their actual skills, rather than relying on estimates, before being locked in a system where they couldn’t fix any problems.

"I’ll start," Apollo said. "Controlled pulse. Keep an eye on the hesitation window."

"Mireya will be on the left flank when the enemy stalls," Elizabeth said. "Alexander, you will take the center position. Iris, focus on the eastern target; it is tracking movement differently than the other two."

"Noted," Iris said.

The first thing Apollo did was send out a controlled life-affinity pulse. That was just the baseline version; it wasn’t an activation.

It was the kind that made the environment seem to slightly reverse entropy. For a living thing that hadn’t been hurt, this caused confusion because it got healing information all of a sudden that it didn’t need.

The creatures stopped.

Not very long. But enough.

"Now," Elizabeth said.

Mireya moved in the pause.